Drinking limits – how many units do you drink?

So, it looks like Dame Sally and Public Health England have been playing fast and loose with the facts about safe drinking levels, according to reports about different versions of the stats used to justify the lowering of the limits, as well as accusations of PHE applying pressure to the research group to change the results to suit the PHE’s desired outcome.

It’s not a surprise if you read a bit of background at the time the limits were changed, as they made no sense and were out of step with limits and information from other places around the world. Other research did not back up the claims by PHE and showed much less harm and in fact a hint of benefits from very low levels of drinking, which made claims that “there are no safe levels of alcohol consumption” look completely out of step.

The Sheffield research group behind all this do not seem to be held in high regard by other researchers amid claims of poor quality research and inaccurate reporting and there is definitely a feeling of a prohibitionist mindset in the group’s output.